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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

THE FACT- HOWRAH BRIDGE

Welcome readers to That's really THE FACT. I am here to make you read some of the interesting facts and some funny things happening around the world that you will enjoy and speak about it to your friends, I will try to make my blog interesting with mind blowing facts, some which will bring you a smile and some which will make you think the whole day.

Well to start with here I go with my very first THE FACT starting with my very hometown Kolkata city about the Howrah Bridge.

THE FACT- HOWRAH BRIDGE.

The Howrah Bridge built in a structure of Cantilever Bridge that spans the Hoogli river in West Bengal was commissioned in the year 1943. It was earlier known as the Rabindra satu after the great poet Rabindranath Tagore but still it is popularly known as the Howrah Bridge. It joins the Howrah city and the twins city Kolkata.

Initially the construction of the bridge was stalled due to World War1.

The bridge is spectacular in its sense that it does not have bolts and nuts like that of the other bridge so far built. It consumed about 26,500 tones of steel. WOW!!! now that's THE FACT!

One day during grabbing out the muck to enable the caisson (a large watertight chamber used for construction under water.) to move, the ground bellow it yielded and the entire mass plunged two feet shaking the ground. The impact was so intense that the seismograph registered it as an Earthquake and one of the temple near by the river collapsed with the impact.

Another shocking fact is that after the bridge was made allow to use, the traffic rose to the great extent and moreover the Tram was also run over by the bridge making it the most busiest bridge all over. The bridge carrying capacity is 60,000 tonnes but daily vehicles it carries is about 90,000 tones overloading the bridge. But yes measures were taken to avoid overloading of the bridge, Tram buses were stopped running over bridge and so as heavy trucks carrying goods were diverted to another bridge allowing only pedestrians.

The bridge is equipped with high tech cameras to keep check over traffic and accidents.

Another issue came across was the corrosion caused by human spitting has made the bridge carrying capacity less. Another issue raised was the Shitting of birds on the steel had again brought about a serious impact on the bridge.

The Kolkata Port Trust (KPT) had engaged contractors to regularly clean the Birds shit. The KPT has spent nearly Rs 65 Lakhs to paint the entire Bridge again to strengthen it. It required about 26,500 liters of paint....... wooofffff Thats too much!